


A Farewell to Birchwoods

by Lotusabc616



Category: Hetalia - Fandom, countyhuman
Genre: M/M, The collapse of the Soviet union
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:12:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22303594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lotusabc616/pseuds/Lotusabc616
Summary: At one moment it seemed that the love which belonged to the past times and had been buried in winter sunlight came back to them.
Relationships: Lover - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	A Farewell to Birchwoods

A Farewell to Birchwoods 

Once we marched forward together through filthy sludge, side by side, in wind and storm   
Once we fought together, back to back, standing up to guns and bullets  
Once we struggled for the same faith, until we chose different routes   
I criticized you that you were wrongheaded   
You scolded me that I was an apostate  
We eventually broke up   
Until you disappeared in heavy snow   
While I stared at your shadow, vowing that I would change, but never betray   
That was the poem you told me  
And I would move forward with it deeply kept in my mind   
By Zinaida Gipius

It was bitterly cold in the winter of 1991.   
The sky of Moscow in this season was rather gloomy in snow and the passersby looked so indifferent to what had been happening in this city.   
In grocery there was hardly anything that could arouse costumers’ interest because the shelves were almost empty except canned fish or bottled juice. Occasionally some eggs were supplied but immediately sold out as soon as they appeared on the counter. As for those shopping malls there were only old-fashioned clothes left and the salesclerk yawned wearily because there wasn’t even one costumer here for him to chat with. He drank half a bottle of vodka and dozed with heavy depression.   
The strike of workers, the endless conflicts between senior leaders, and astonishing inflation which made notes as valueless as waste paper……all these almost drove people mad.   
How long had these lasted?  
It was too long to calculate how many days like these people had experienced. 

USSR wandered aimlessly and exhaustedly on the street and what he saw was all deadly white. He fled the Kremlin hurriedly as soon as he had finished the final work on the transfer of government. It was rather too cruel for him to haul down the red flag by himself.   
He hid inside the birchwoods on the outskirts of Moscow and waited for the last moment to pronounce his death. Overlooking the red flag flying high up over Kremlin he seemed to see a ball of fire which was struggling to fight against the cold wind to the last minute.   
However, the fire would die out soon.   
USSR was going to die or he had died long before despite his nominal existence.   
No one came to see him off. He was waiting for the moment in which the red flag would fall, together with the collapse of his faith and the demise of his own.   
Over the Bering Strait the smug sneer of USA made him feel disgusted. Yes he lost completely in the invisible war. As for CN, without my intervention he must have gloated for his more smooth development in the future?   
Wind seemed to blow more fiercely, howling the eternal songs of the north kingdom with snow falling down from the sky incessantly, like a sharp blade which tried to cut everything. USSR still stood there, staring at the red flag, like a statue covered with snow. 

He once was such an arrogant red empire, and how came he ended up with such pathetic destiny after his defeat in the imperial graveyard.   
The regime was divided and the solidarity of people was lost and old allies who once promised unbreakable alliance left him. Ridiculous.   
He tried to change and put forward reforms but the effect was very slight. He grew tired, letting the buzzards plunder power and wealth and take advantage before he died.  
When the red flag was hauled down, what would be raised up? He couldn’t help thinking.

The rustling sound of snow being squeezed by boats made USSR turned around.   
It was CN.   
He had obviously been busy running about outside for a long time for that there was snowflake on his eyelashes and the snow falling on his clothes melted but got frozen again.   
“I find you here.”  
CN thought he must have been crazy.   
If not how he could rush to airport as soon as he leaned the news from USA that USSR was going to disintegrate and came to Moscow alone to find the familiar man?  
He looked for USSR for a long time, a very long time. He searched everywhere, Kremlin, streets and alleys, every corner of the city. He ran in storm and feel down several times but stood up immediately to continue to look for USSR. 

His apprehensive moods reassured when he saw USSR’s shadow in the white birchwoods.   
At the moment when he caught the sight of CN, USSR could hardly specify his feelings. It was quite a long time since they met each and despite the mitigation of tense there still excited indelible conflicts between them. They could only probe each other so cautiously and they could never come back to their previous relationship.   
USSR didn’t want CN to see his pathetic denouement but he couldn’t hide his instant joy when he saw CN. 

Time had changed and CN was no longer the enormous but weak downfallen empire. It was funny that he and the USSR almost simultaneously embarked on the route of reforms, however one had earned vigorous development but the other was fragmented and dying.   
“I have no more to give you.”  
“No, USSR, you... misunderstood me. I just want to see you again, that’s all.”  
CN walked forward a few steps to stand beside USSR, reaching out his hand to brush the snow off his shoulders.  
The winter daytime of the Moscow was extremely short, like a visitor in a hurry who came and left without enough time to sprinkle his light. The warmth also quietly disappeared at the same time when light faded. The sun sank and the afterglow covered everything in the world with a layer of soft red color. 

The sunset was like dead fire, so gorgeous but had lost temperature, also like the falling red star.   
They were both so bright before.   
Sun would rise again but what about the red star?  
It would never rise the next time or it had been beyond recognition a long time ago.   
“Must you witness my death?”  
Death.   
Although disintegration was undoubted but when he heard USSR admitted his death, CN still felt unbelievable.   
That country, declared his own collapse.   
“Does that red flag have no choice but to be hauled down?”  
CN asked but had already implied his answer in an affirmative tone.  
“Why ask, CN, that falling red flag, can you swear its termination has nothing to do with you?”  
CN admitted he had done something ignominious to accelerate today’s situation, however, he never expected the outcome that USSR would disappear soon, neither did he want this to happen, no matter for the starting point of national interest or because of his individual emotion. 

“That used to be our common faith—— CN, why we took different paths?”  
“That is my belief forever; I am not an apostate, I never betray, USSR.”  
“Really?” USSR suspected, “My dear little Bolshevik.”  
When the name came out, they were both stunned.  
Bolsheviks, red soviets, those words were what CN used to be so familiar with, yes they used to be so close.  
One hundred and fifty-six bailouts, three hundred contracts, the holding hands and hug and kiss in the snow……These memories had not faded, they loved each other so deeply, but how came they finally broke up and were trapped in belligerency ?  
One thousand years of love and hatred tangled together which was impossible to distinguish or explain. Sweetness and pain were interwoven but why was it so hard to let this broken relationship go since they had hurt each other hundreds of thousands of times?  
Why did we end up with this?  
They seemed to have so much to confess but the words coagulated deep down and were too difficult to express. 

“CN, do you hate me?”  
USSR giggled, like it was nothing but a frivolous joke.   
“Yes.”  
CN answered without hesitation.   
CN felt resentful about the forced independence of Mongolia and the war in Zhenbao Island, he would never forgave USSR for what he had done, endless border disputes, unequal treaties and so many lands which he was coerced to cede.   
CN hated USSR but it was his past weak and impoverished self that should have been hated.   
“Now you don’t need to lie……it’s unnecessary, isn’t it?”  
Yes we know that.   
“……But USSR, what you don’t know is that, I love you, so much.”  
He loved USSR and this love was like the glistening moment in which a bird flew away gently; like the sunflowers growing in the cold solid in northern continent blossomed as sincerely and vigorously as burning fire; like the fireworks broke out in the lonely sky doom and the resplendence of which lit up the darkness of night in one second; like the butterfly locked in left atrium and affection penetrated inside its flesh but it couldn’t spread its wings to escape, in the end it was buried deep in the heart.   
USSR lent a helping hand in his most difficult time, such as the military aid in Northeast and the technological assistance in his first five-year plan, and the red star of the October Revolution and the starlight of which split darkness and showed him the direction.   
Love and hatred were tangled together and CN couldn’t distinguish them, so he just let it go, leaving the morbid reliance evolving to be the opponent situation in battleground.   
“I love you, too.”  
So much emotion which had accumulated in many years broke out all of a sudden.   
He once loved CN, the love was like the dappled light left by meteors when they fell down throughout millions of years; like hundreds of thousands of butterflies vibrated their wings inside his chest and they would fly outside from his mouth if he expressed his love; like sands and pebbles which always slid from his gasp; like the snow in sunny days without blurred dust but wasn’t gorgeous either, it was just weaved time into nostalgia in silent delight. It was naïve but cruel, stubborn and crazy.   
But it was buried in dust.   
Yes they did fall in love in the past and they did seek true feelings by getting rid of the dust of interest.   
Ridiculous.   
One of them was too manipulative and the other was too stubborn. Both of them had used the acrid words as sharp blade to stab into each other’s chest, however, neither of them admitted their own faults.   
The love was born in hope and was based on dream, for that they once stared at the scalding stars together in messy reality. It was the combination of cruelty and stubborn and it was the pure idealism and can never tolerate anything imperfect. Any estrangement can lead to tragic breaking up. It could slide from one extreme to the other and there never existed any possibility that they lied to each other to maintain deceptive relationship.   
They once supported each other in war times but eventually became enemies.   
The falling sun harvested the remaining afterglow and the dim light was fragmented.  
Tears dropped from the chin of USSR.   
Dusk arrived, the ambiguous coldness was materialized and the coldness spread inside the bone and evaporated in the snow.   
CN reached out his hand to wipe USSR’s tears and the nearly untouchable heat of which fell into his hand but disappeared in cold wind immediately. 

Did he cry, too?  
As the unrivaled country, the evil red empire in the eyes of the west and the forerunner of the revolution, did he also cry?  
How proud he was – he was a revolutionary pioneer, a desperate warrior who would never show the slightest sign of cowardice but now he could also be trapped in the ice of solitude, repressing his weeping in the darkness before dawn.  
He held torches high up and led people to search for hope and light but the revolutionist himself had been covered with wounds.  
Console and exhortation at this moment were powerless. CN did not know what to say and what he could do was only to keep wiping USSR’s falling tears, lest they condensed into ice.  
Final departure loomed for them.  
He wanted to hug USSR, the one he had loved for 69 years but also had hated for more than 40 years.  
He wanted to kiss USSR, the one that had given him hope and put him on his guard  
Actually he did.  
Was it because he had lost ration because of the impendent departure? Or was it perhaps because the love which had been repressed for so long was impossible to control? Who knew?

Gentle and tolerant Oriental man stood on tiptoe to kiss the lip of the USSR, grabbing his collar to shorten the distance between them. When two lips touched each other together, USSR felt that his cold dry lip was moistened by the tip of CN’s tongue. USSR hesitated for a while and then held CN tightly to further deepen the kiss.  
The tip of the tongue ambiguously sent out the invitation, prying open the teeth, looking for gaps to explore across the hidden corner. Rough tongue moss scraped the mouth mucous membrane and the tip of each other’s tongue tangled, swallowing each other’s breaths.   
The familiar sense of alcohol spread in the mouth, miserably mixed with a little rusty taste. They were close to the hypoxia but the entanglement of tongue didn’t cease, as if they wanted to crush each other in this hug, neither of them loosened the gasp.   
Sealed with a kiss.   
The familiar smell was reassuring.  
When did sunflower and peony begin to get intertwined in each other’s destinies? No one could tell, but when they recognized the love, the flowers had faded into dust and mixed too closely to separate you and me.   
The birchwoods linked their hearts together, and the common Communism faith fused their souls together.   
They had countless crazy kisses like this when they made love in the night. Their fingers interlocked, their hair got interwoven, their eyes crossed and there was deep inexplicable feelings surging in the long stare without confrontation or confrontation. They exchanged the most crazy and intimate love words and seared the most pious traces on each other’s body.   
They embraced and kissed in the snow while the red flag over the Kremlin was falling gradually with the glare of fire licking the faith of the past.

It was time to say goodbye.   
He didn’t need to overlook the northern land in timidity, he should have felt relieved but the delight was combined with unspeakable sorrow, and CN didn’t know how to define his feeling.   
He cried but there was no other superfluous expression on his face. Only the tears fell down mechanically.  
USSR reached out his hand and gently wiped away CN’s tears, as if he had scrubbed the world’s most precious gem as carefully as possible.  
“Don’t cry, my dear little Bolshevik. Do you see the red flag?”  
USSR pointed to the distance where an indistinct shadow was falling down.  
“The hammer symbolizes the working class and the sickle symbolizes the peasant class. The combination of the two tools is the symbol of the union of workers and peasants. That is symbol of the Communist party.”  
“The five-pointed star not only symbolizes the five fingers of each hand of workers and peasants, but also represents the slogan: All proletarians of the world must unite.”  
Red is the color of revolution, and yellow is the color of revolutionary light.  
Yeah, I knew. How could I forget?  
“Please carry on with our faith.”  
USSR took CN’s hand and took down the red five-pointed star from his collar and pressed it into CN’s palm.  
“Я тебя люблю”  
Millions of red butterflies flies out from USSR’s chest, enveloped in the cold wind, and disappeared in the distance. They froze into ice in the extreme coldness and the hailstones tore their fragile wings, but they still struggled to fly and to chase beliefs in unshakable determination. They were buried in snow and were burned in flames and got lost on the way to pursuit the faith. They experienced death continuously but also created nirvana constantly, trying to touch the distant horizon.  
USSR’s shadow became the light of the sky. The sickle and the hammer were broken into fifteen fragments and gone with the wind, and finally melted into the air and disappeared.  
CN clutched the five-pointed red star, feeling pain from the sharp prickle of it, but CN still refused to let it go.  
As if it was the last attachment of the soul of his lover.

It was his faith and his salvation and it was also his lover whom he pushed to death by himself;   
The remaining warmth his lover didn’t be taken away by the cold wind, CN kneeled in the snow and cried in hoarse scream, pressing the red star tightly to his chest to let the last heat burn his heart. He cried and cried without restraining his emotions, as if he wanted to release the loneliness and pain which had accumulated for thousands of years.   
He sang the song Катюша over and over again until he lost his voice.   
You really left me.   
Farewell, my love.   
The new-born tricolor flag put an end for the red story and he could hear people’s cheers from someplace remote, just like the cheers 69 years ago when the red flag was raised up.   
69 years of struggle.  
69 years of glory.  
69 years of Soviet soul.  
With eyes closed CN recovered from the most cowardly feelings and he wiped out his tears and threw the red star high up to the distance in determination. 

“You know what, USSR.”  
CN mumbles to himself.  
“I’ve never been your little Bolshevik. I wasn’t. I’m not. I won’t.”  
“China is by no means a vassal of any country.”  
“I thank you for your assistance, sincere or not.”  
“But I will carry on with what we believe in.”  
“I never betray.”  
“...I love you.”  
Until now, I dare to love you without reservation.

It was bitterly cold in the winter of 1991. Until now CN still remembered clearly the coldness which pierced his bones. In that year Red Star fell down and then came the upheaval of Eastern Europe, marking the end of the craziest 44 years. People frantically craved up the heritage left by the huge red empire after its collapse and cheered for how beautiful it was after the red fog disappeared.   
Only one man picked up the falling red star, continuing to walk along the dead man’s path, with the most indomitable willpower.   
I would go on, in the name of the Bolsheviks.  
I would take your torch and keep going. Our red dream would never fade. 

Spring knocked on the window of the north kingdom.   
The warm sunlight melted the remaining snow and the seeds germinated from the permafrost with new green shoots growing. New leaves emerged from the birch trees.   
The typical spring wind also touched more tender and warm, holding the newborn tricolor flag flying in the sky.  
CN looked back, bumping into that pair of familiar purple eyes.  
“Long time no see.”  
However CN knew that there had been something missing forever in the seemingly familiar eyes.  
“Yes, it’s too long. “  
We reunited after such a long time of separation...No, maybe the parting was not too long, I should have said that it is more likely to be a retrieving after long lost. .  
“...Can I hug you again?”  
The east Slavic man asked carefully..  
CN gave the most direct answer without a word. He kissed the pale lips of the east Slavic man.  
Sealed with a kiss.   
They embraced and kissed in the warm spring sun, with a sea of gorgeous sunflowers blossoming behind them.  
At one moment it seemed that the love which belonged to the past times and had been buried in winter sunlight came back to them.


End file.
